Westpac to move 250 employees from Wellington to Auckland

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Rmani

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#264332 16-Jan-2020 18:28

Have friends working there, few were worried about this.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/westpac-forcing-250-wellington-workers-to-relocate-or-take-redundancy/ar-BBZ0h2O

PS: Not sure if this is the right forum, if not, moderators please move it to the right forum.

Rmani

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#2400180 16-Jan-2020 19:28

It's nice they are offering to pay relocation costs and giving plenty of notice, but a shame we don't have any spare houses up here!

I'd really have thought that splitting resources across two offices for Disaster Recovery reasons would have been worthwhile.

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wellygary

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#2400228 16-Jan-2020 19:46

Dynamic:

It's nice they are offering to pay relocation costs and giving plenty of notice, but a shame we don't have any spare houses up here!

Rent in Welly is now comparable, if not even higher than in Auckland, so it certainly not like 10 years ago when people would have been demanding salary increases to deal with the higher living costs...

kendog

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#2400229 16-Jan-2020 19:47

This is pretty big news.

Will the other banks start to follow?

tardtasticx

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#2400231 16-Jan-2020 19:53

Would be interesting to see what percentage of their head office workforce this affects, would be a decent chunk I would think.
One of the other big 4 is trying to get more of the IT crew into Auckland as well, though not as drastically as this.

In terms of housing, I think Auckland and Wellington are both lacking if I'm not mistaken? Pretty expensive in both centres unfortunately so that probably isn't helping those employees making a decision.

alasta

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#2400233 16-Jan-2020 19:57

They should be moving jobs to places like Christchurch and Palmerston North where housing is much cheaper.

BlakJak

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#2400246 16-Jan-2020 20:35

I expect they're moving employees, not employers. ;-)

I'd have thought large organisations with offices in multiple cities should be seeking to retain diversity, both for BCDR purposes and to ensure they have access to the talent pools in both cities. Wellington has a vibrant IT community, why eliminate it from future recruitment pooling?

I'm disappointed for Westpac IT.

It's one thing to prefer to hire roles into one centre or the other, but it's quite another to create a move-or-be-made-redundant situation for potentially long-serving staff.

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#2400251 16-Jan-2020 20:44

Having work in agile teams that are co-located in one office, and teams that are spread across the country, my opinion is co-locating teams is critical to high performance. Co-locating agile teams is a key Microsoft recommendation for development teams.

Having multiple locations is useful for BCP, but most large modern companies have multiple data centers and can leverage cloud to some extent, and they have really effective systems to allow people to work remotely. In a disaster people can work from home, or from hubs they set up for that purpose.

Handsomedan

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#2400757 17-Jan-2020 14:14

I have seen this coming for a number of years.

Westpac's head office is no longer wellington and the majority of their resources now operate out of Auckland.

The interesting thing will be where they move them to...Takutai Square is full. 97 Queen is not ideal and probably doesn't have capacity - do they move them to the outer suburbs in an industrial area like Albany or Manukau?

Giving them 12 months to think about it gives them time to build/fit-out/rent space, I guess...

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sbiddle

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#2400759 17-Jan-2020 14:22

Knowing people there I'd say this is a pretty major failing in some respects. Significant numbers of people not moving to Auckland has the potential to result in a pretty major loss of knowledge within the organisation.

Both Spark and Vodafone have struck similar issues over recent years where those jumping for voluntary redundancies has resulted in massive losses within the organisation without them really comprehending this at the time.

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#2400760 17-Jan-2020 14:23

Looks like the employees have to confirm their choice by April and rel-locate around August

Rmani

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#2400808 17-Jan-2020 15:38

Handsomedan:

I have seen this coming for a number of years.

Westpac's head office is no longer wellington and the majority of their resources now operate out of Auckland.

The interesting thing will be where they move them to...Takutai Square is full. 97 Queen is not ideal and probably doesn't have capacity - do they move them to the outer suburbs in an industrial area like Albany or Manukau?

Giving them 12 months to think about it gives them time to build/fit-out/rent space, I guess...

"The bank said the decision was motivated by a new opportunity to acquire more floor space at the bank's headquarters in Auckland's Britomart precinct."

I actually read the article...

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alasta

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#2400825 17-Jan-2020 15:40

sbiddle:

Knowing people there I'd say this is a pretty major failing in some respects. Significant numbers of people not moving to Auckland has the potential to result in a pretty major loss of knowledge within the organisation.

Both Spark and Vodafone have struck similar issues over recent years where those jumping for voluntary redundancies has resulted in massive losses within the organisation without them really comprehending this at the time.

What these companies seem to struggle to understand is that for most mature people it is easier to find another job than to uplift your entire life and move to another city.

sbiddle

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#2400828 17-Jan-2020 15:43

alasta:

sbiddle:

Knowing people there I'd say this is a pretty major failing in some respects. Significant numbers of people not moving to Auckland has the potential to result in a pretty major loss of knowledge within the organisation.

Both Spark and Vodafone have struck similar issues over recent years where those jumping for voluntary redundancies has resulted in massive losses within the organisation without them really comprehending this at the time.

What these companies seem to struggle to understand is that for most mature people it is easier to find another job than to uplift your entire life and move to another city.

Especially when that city is Auckland.